Ian Dury and the Blockheads
Mr Love Pants

Ian Dury, a tribute to incorrectness.

The Blockheads had sworn they would never again play with that slippery dwarf and yet, here they are, all together again. Because the lame lion is sick and wants to sing one more time.

And the music flows smoothly as it used to. And the words are still insolent and corrosive.

Whether they talk about how you wasted your chances when you were young (Jack Shit George), or remind you that it's only what we've done and learned that makes this story real (The Passing Show). But if you realize you're going in circles, here's a trick: run happily to the toilet and go click click click (Cacka Boom).

"Mr. Love Pants" is a great album. And everyone already knows it will also be the last. And so does he, Ian, the grinning clown. He will fight another two years with the illness that will carry him away, and will continue to give his all in concert until the very end, even when they have to carry him on stage.

"There are a couple of ways to avoid death. And one of them is to be magnificent."

And he lived and was magnificent until the end. Magnificent and mocking.

Because Ian knew there are always great reasons to be cheerful:

- "A drop of rosé / everything that breaks / Elvis and Scotty / days when I have no pimples / sitting on the toilet / curing smallpox..." -

Yet, if at seven years old you happen to take a bath in a public pool and catch polio from drinking a bit of infected water, maybe, you might have good reasons not to see it so much, the bright side of life.

If you survive.

One leg and one arm screwed. Never run, jump, play soccer again. Screwed.

So, mom Peggy and aunts Betty and Molly decide that little Ian will have to go to the "Chailey Heritage Craft School" of madame Kimmings, whose motto was: "Men Made Here" and where the pedagogical "mission" was that if the children were raised harshly and learned a trade (preferably cobbling), they would become strong enough to survive in life despite the handicap.

Not that Peggy, Betty, and Molly didn't love little Ian, or that they had done it out of ignorance or desperation (Peggy was the daughter of a doctor and was a nurse, the Dury family belonged to the middle class): no, they truly believed that this was the best choice for their child crippled by illness. His father William, a former boxer and then bus driver, had left (or had been kicked out) and someone had to guide him. Especially since, by now, in his condition, what else could he do?

At Miss Kimmings' school, Ian ends up in the clutches of Mr. Hargreaves, a former resident of the Institute, who will become his tutor.

Ian will recount that when, some time later, he returned to the Chailey Heritage Craft School and learned that Mr. Hargreaves had committed suicide, he felt a deep joy.

During those years, the only happy moments were Sundays when his father came to visit him. No longer a bus driver but of a Rolls Royce, he would arrive in that big car and Ian felt like someone important.

To him, our hero will dedicate "My Old Man," a poignant memory of a father who "smoked too many cigarettes and lived in a little room up in Victoria" and who had become his hero.

But it was that experience that forged his character, that transformed him into a cockney, aggressive and unmanageable.

And Ian made a decision: OK, one arm and one leg were screwed, but not his head or his manhood. In fact, they worked perfectly, and he would use those to make his way.

So, our hero, instead of becoming a cobbler, clings to his crutches and goes to art school. He is a brilliant student and manages to enter the prestigious Royal College of Art. Here he is appreciated by the pop artist Peter Blake. So, after finishing his studies, the doors of teaching open to him.

Yes: that deformed imp who mumbled lascivious and boorish rhymes with a heavy cockney accent, slicked up and made up, was a cultured and courageous man.

He had kept his head working, our Ian. But his manhood hadn't been idle either. His sexual insatiability was proverbial among those who knew him. And then he had also married Betty and had immediately set her to produce children.

- "I woke up this morning with a gift for the female kind/ you're still sleeping but the gift doesn't seem to mind/ wake up, and make love with me!" -

Anyway, the story could have ended there, if Gene Vincent hadn't been involved.

Because Ian's true passion was music, and his hero was Gene Vincent. So, when Gene died, Ian decided he had to give up everything and play music.

He takes a couple of art students, his ex-roommate, and a couple of other crazies and forms Kilburn and the High Roads.

And they go at it.

Even while his second son, Baxter (the same Baxter immortalized on the cover of "New Boots and Panties"), was being born, Ian was downstairs in his house playing loud with the band. And it's no surprise that, with such imprinting, Baxter would also become a musician (and not a bad one: at least listen to his "Happy Soup" to get an idea).

The Kilburns are great musicians, and their mixture of R&B, blues-rock, Disco, and music-hall is really fun. But at first, it is just a long and frustrating stint of gigs in all kinds of dives, amidst public indifference and with few pennies in the pocket. Then, one day, Nick Lowe notices them and takes them to "Tally-ho". The tour expands, and one night Roger Daltrey happens upon one of their concerts and decides to take them on tour with the Who.

It was the Who's 1973 English tour, the "Quadrophenia" tour. The tour was quite disastrous, even for Daltrey's band, but the Who decided to take the Kilburns on their American dates too. A big coup: the Kilburns were just a pub rock band without a contract, going to America to play with the Who! They worked extremely hard to get passports and visas in record time, only to find out that at the last moment, they were replaced by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

The Kilburns couldn't handle the blow and broke up.

But Ian, in the meantime, had met Chez Jankel, who would be his musical partner, and Denise, who would be his partner in bed.

Denise is nineteen years old, of Jamaican origin, and it's true love. Ian leaves Betty (but will never divorce her, it will be her to leave him carried away by cancer) and goes to live with Denise in a hole without even running water.

Chez, instead, composes with him "Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll".

Okay, the bass riff that supports the song is stolen from a Charlie Haden solo, but who cares?

With that song and couple of other tracks, the two go knocking on all doors.

No one pays attention to them.

Then comes Stiff Records.

Stiff is not just any label: it's one of the main creators of that new stuff that's emerging. Punk.

And a lame, depraved dwarf muttering trivial, incorrect, angry, and double-entendre stories (but extraordinarily full of humor and irony) with a heavy, and often incomprehensible, cockney accent is perfect for punk.

Sure, the stuff they play isn't punk, but who cares?

It's '77, and Dury is already 35 years old.

Ian and Chez hastily put together a new group and name it after one of their songs: "Blockheads." And, damn, the Blockheads are a top-quality band!

And so come two great albums – "New Boots and Panties" and "Do It Yourself" – and quite a few hits – "Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll", "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick", "Inbetweenies", "Reasons To Be Cheerful Pt. 3".

- "I had a love affair with Nina in the back of my Cortina/ a seasoned- up hyena / couldn't have been more obscener" -

At that point, Ian decides he's become a superstar. Leaving the filthy little apartment he shared with Denise, he moves to live in a five-star hotel and then rents a luxury villa with a park and swimming pool.

But fortune, as we know, doesn't last long, and Ian isn't someone who gets lucky.

His demons assail him during the sessions for "Laughter". Alcohol and paranoia. The relationship with Denise is at the end of the line. Ian tells Chez to sod off too, Wilco Johnson takes his place. The recordings are disastrous, Ian burns all the money to set up a pharaonic tour, and in the end, the album is a flop.

Stiff drops him, and the Blockheads split. "Never again with that slippery dwarf," they swear.

Then Chez comes back. The two fly to Jamaica with Polydor's money to record "Lord Upmister" with Sly & Dumbar.

"Lord Upmister" is his weakest album; however, it contains "Spasticus Autisticus".

- "A WHEELCHAIR IN EVERY HOME" - In England, it is the slogan of the UN Year of the Disabled, and the BBC folks think it's a good idea to ask Dury for a celebratory song for the event.

Who better than him?

And Ian repays them with "Spasticus Autisticus".

You know that scene from "Spartacus" by Kubrick? When the rebel gladiators, now defeated, shout their "I am Spartacus"? Well, that same battle cry turns into "I am spastic and autistic." And then Ian bites into the obtuse and "politically correct" propriety of his commissioners with all the incorrectness and fierce irony he is capable of.

- "I'm Spasticus, Spasticus/Spasticus Autisticus/I twist when I pee/because my tool is a colander/So put your hard-earned money in my cup/And thank the Creator you're not in my state" -

Those jolly fellows at the BBC don't take it well and ban "Spasticus Autisticus." And Ian, for a long time, is "persona non grata" in those studios. Many public service executives who lash at him don't even know about his disease.

And so Ian's career flounders. Sporadic appearances, fluctuating quality. Our hero takes to cinema (and does quite well) and writes for theater. He gets married again. In short, he continues to keep his head (and his manhood) working.

Then, in 1995, he's diagnosed with cancer. Three years later he decides he wants to sing again and calls the Blockheads.

And they come out with "Mr. Love Pants". And have I already told you it's a great album? Make room for it between "New Boots and Panties" and "Do It Yourself". Because you have them, right? If not, what are we even doing here, let's go on FB to post kittens...

Two years later, cancer takes him away. It's 2000, and Ian is 57 years old.

But in those 57 years he mocked, spat, grinned, had sex, made fun of the press, musicians, record labels, institutions, fans (to an adoring fan trying to touch him, he shouted, chasing him away in a bad way "I'm not the Pope"). Punk without being punk, rapper without being rapper, singer without knowing how to sing, a bit Gene Vincent and a bit Captain Beefheart (someone will say), Lou Reed with hair gel (someone else will say), a more ironic and pop Mark E. Smith (I say). Sleazy and filthy, poet and "freak", bastard and faithful friend, improbable rockstar. In England, he hasn't been forgotten: books, record reissues, and even a film "Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll" with a fantastic Andy Serkis in his role.

In short, he lived, despite everything. Alive and magnificent.

The blows dealt by the gods are just brief detours on our path.

"And now everyone get the hell out. You're fired. Go and be magnificent."

Be magnificent.

By the way.

Then, one day, Ian really met Charlie Haden. And, standing in front of him, he couldn't help but confess his theft. So Ian tells Charlie that his biggest hit "Sex & Drugs & Rock'n'Roll" relies on a bass riff he stole from him. Then Charlie looks at him and says: "Don't worry, brother, I stole that riff too".

In fact, it was an old Cajun standard.